With both Muirfield and Royal Troon now likely to vote to accept female members, the last bastion of golf Neanderthalia is no longer Scotland, it’s… Chicago.
Yes, the City of Big Shoulders is home to a greater concentration of all-male golf clubs than any city (or state or nation, as far as we know) in the world. There’s testosterone-heavy Bob-O-Link and blue-blood Old Elm, both in Highland Park; relative newcomer Black Sheep, set on farmland in the western suburb of Sugar Grove; and Oak Brook’s Butler National, a long-time pro tournament venue that lost the Western Open a quarter century ago due to its ban of women. Amazingly, none of them seems to be mulling a change of policy.
